The Autofill Project

Default - 314026 Words
New 9L 29S PIGGISHLY

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     NINEHOLES (65)

There apparently is (or was) some lawn bowling variant with this name, though I feel the {Short golf game} sense of the phrase is idiomatic enough for a crossword.

     ONEPOTATO (45)

I marked this entry for reconsideration because I thought it might have stand-alone dictionary value in some sense, but I couldn’t find anything significant. The counting off game is popularly titled “One Potato, Two Potato.” The 45 score is higher than I should give a nine-letter partial, but I gave it some extra points out of personal fondness, figuring that the far-from-ideal clue {Start of a kid’s counting-off chant} might be okay in some situations.

     PADDYWACK (30)

{British slang term for a spanking that appears in the nursery rhyme “This Old Man”} might be a fun way to clue PADDYWHACK, but adding a “(var.)” tag at the end of the clue would be a buzzkill.

Added AcrossLite files and Notepad
Default - 314026 Words

Transposal: SITNSPIN / TINSNIPS

The Notepad contained OneLook entries from a *magic* search and a few other odds and ends.

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     CHESTERARTHUR (75)

I added the category list of U.S. presidents to Default ages ago, so I was embarrassed to find this omission. The versions of the name with the middle name Alan and the middle initial were in Default. The version with just the first and last name is less common but clearly legit.

     DALLASMAVERICK (70)

I also though I had long ago added all the singular forms of professional sports teams. I’ll have to double check Default for other omissions.

     MAGICFINGERS (70)

This dated vibrating-bed device used to show up periodically as a sitcom visual game for a seedy motel room. I was surprised that the phrase, in the vibrating bed sense, was not a Wikipedia headword, though it is findable in the article for entrepreneur John Houghtaling.

     ZEPHIR (70)

The Notepad contained some entries related to the Babar the Elephant children’s book series, including BRUNHOFF, CELESTEVILLE, and LORDRATAXES. The beret-wearing monkey Zephir was my favorite character in the series. When my mom read the stories to me in my childhood she pronounced the name with the stress on the first syllable, so it sounded like “zephyr.” I recently saw a segment of the animated Babar series while channel surfing and discovered that correct stress is on the second syllable. Now that I think about it, my friend Jennifer Turney uses the nom “Saphir” in the National Puzzlers’ League and I made a similar pronunciation error when I met her at a convention. Thanks, mom!

Default - 313779 Words
New 9L 29S MOBILISED

The 29S list started as 25,000 entries that I removed from Default. I quickly scanned the list and picked 1,500 of the entries, based mainly on gut feeling, for reconsideration. Now that I’m going through the list of rescued entries more deliberately, I can see how often my gut feelings were off the mark…

     ITSTRICKY (1)

This entry did appear in a crossword and made the CRUCIVERB list. I didn’t have high hopes even in the quick scan, and after additional consideration I decided it wasn’t worth keeping.

     JOKEPROOF (1)

This word looks reasonable, but lacks dictionary support. It looks like an entry in a Trip Payne “Something Different” puzzle. Those puzzles are great, but I don’t save the solved grids for entry harvesting for obvious reasons.

     KITEFLIER (1)

I was on the fence with this one. The phrase, with that spelling, shows up in some book titles. Maybe if I saw someone else use it in a published puzzle I’ll change my mind.

     LUTEMAKER (1)

I picked a few *MAKER entries for the rescue list to check for dictionary value. So far I have marked CAKEMAKER, CARDMAKER, and GLUEMAKER for deletion. I kept BEERMAKER (50), FLAGMAKER (50), and LACEMAKER (45). FILEMAKER (60) is the software that I use for some of my day job databases, but my employer may be marking it for deletion very soon.

     MAAMSELLE (1)

In the quick scan I thought this entry might be valid for the Sinatra song or the Pogo comics character but discovered those uses are spelled “MAMSELLE.” A lot of the quick-scan misfires are based similar misspellings.

Default - 313779 Words
New 9L 29S IDEALISED

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     ECHINACEA (65)

Ten years ago I would have scored this word in the 30s, but the use of this herb in recent pharmaceutical advertising has elevated its familiarity. In a themeless crossword I would be tempted to avoid a medicinal clue and instead reference the  hedgehog-like inflorescence that gives the plant its name.

     EPHARMONY (55)

When I Googled this word, I found its dictionary definition, which has something to do with biological adaptation, and also discovered that it is a medical prescription website (ePharmony) whose name is a play on the eHarmony dating website. That fact makes a more interesting clue option and increased the score.

     HAZELWOOD (50)

Wikipedia’s disambiguation page lists a few dozen proper name options for this word. The one that is most familiar to me is the city in Missouri. Is this city, and the reason it made national news in the 1980s, well-known to any of you?

Added Notepad
Default - 313779 Words

Transposal: LOGOPEDICS / POLICEDOGS

My OneLook search for *police* entries yielded some good database additions but nothing especially interesting in the transposal department.

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     ANGUSTJONES (80)

I added a few names from Two and a Half Men — a sitcom I have never watched. My dad is a fan, and that’s usually a warning sign for me. I’ve read that Jones is ranked as the highest-salaried child star on television. Is this worth Netflixing?

    ROVIO (60)

The video game Angry Birds is popular enough that the company name should be fair game for crossword fodder. I’ve only recently seen the gameplay of AB via YouTube clips. I have to admit that the drunken-sounding whoops that accompany a completed level are entertaining.

     RUNWITHIT (70)
     RANWITHIT, RUNSWITHIT, RUNNINGWITHIT (65)

Some phrasal verbs ending in “it” can be clued in an imperative “conversational” way. I conjugate most of these phrases for completeness, though the inflected forms tend to be awkward. GOTIT, GETSIT, and GETTINGIT are fairly close in score value to the base form GETIT. COOLEDIT, etc. — technically okay, but the score gap widens. FORGOTIT? — forget it!

Default - 313661 Words
New 9L 29S DOCTORIAL

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     CLASSACTS (63)

The plural of this phrase is weird, but it appears legit and could be clued in a pinch.

     COLCANNON (65)

My stepmother, born in Ireland, had a kitchen wall hanging of Irish recipes that included this potatoes-and-cabbage dish. I remember an Irish pub that opened in Lawrence while I was in grad school that had colcannon on the menu but never seemed to have it available when it was ordered. I’d like to try it someday — maybe I should make it myself.

     DEEPSIGHS (33)

I think I manually entered this entry at some point, but I can’t muster up much interest in it now. Maybe the plural is the problem — I would probably score DEEPSIGH higher than 35. My attitude varies as I try to decide whether the Default scores should lean more toward isolated personal preference or commercial tolerance. *sigh*

Default - 313661 Words
New 9L 29S CAESARISM

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     ALIENSHIP (70)

I suspect that this is an entry in some archaic dictionary gleaned for the original CCWIN list and has a meaning of “state of being a foreigner.” The alternative clue approach of an extraterrestrial craft is reasonable enough to merit a score promotion.

     BEANFEAST (45)

This Britishism is too obscure for the average crossword. I appears in the lyrics of “I Want It Now” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and that fond association helped a bit with the score promotion.

     BUTTERINE (50)

I remember when this word was a common clue for OLEO. I remember a crossword that had BUTTERINE as an entry and {Oleo} as the clue — the theme was probably a role-reversal of crosswordese and standard clues. Does anyone else remember a puzzle with such a gimmick?

Added Notepad
Default - 313661 Words

Transposal: MOOTPOINTS / STOPMOTION

The new 9L 29S list is ready for scoring — 25,000 entries pared down to 1,474. I haven’t been motivated to start it yet because the entries are so uninteresting and most will require research. In the meantime, I looked through the OneLook list for *film* and added about 250 entries to Default.

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     ALIENAUTOPSY (55)

This a silly entry that I wouldn’t want to use in a mainstream crossword, but would like to have on hand for some other kind of puzzle project.

     SNUFFFILM (40)

I’m ambivalent about this entry, but I suspect that editors of mainstream crosswords would disapprove of its use.

     SPACEELEVATOR (75)

The MIT Mystery Hunt in January reminded me of this theoretical technology, and I’ve encountered a couple of online articles about space elevators since then. I like the idea of using it as a crossword entry — while it’s not a household term, it’s inferable as a concept. Writing a concise clue might be tricky.

Added Notepad
Default - 313406 Words

Transposal: BLANDDIET / BLINDDATE

The Notepad contained 187 entries, most of which were from a *DIET* search. The Perl script I use for transposals recognizes and includes identical entries in the search results, so I can see how many Notepad entries are already in Default. In the past, I would delete such entries from the Notepad before importing them into CCWIN, but I’m currently including duplicates in the import file to fine-tune their scores.

I’m about four-fifths through the gut-check process of the 25,129 entries in the 9S 29 S list. I should be finished with that process this week and then I will import and score the chosen entries.

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     AZIZANSARI (75)

I started watching NBC’s Parks and Recreation recently based on recommendations of coworkers. I added the names of the actors and characters in the most recent Notepad. Aziz Ansari is probably the most interesting of the names in terms of crossword-letter-pattern potential — what Adam Cohen used to catalog as EVA entries. Based on a recent episode in which Ansari’s character Tom Haverford expounded on food nicknames, I also added CHICKENPARM (75) to the Notepad (but not CHICKYCHICKYPARMPARM).

     DIETSQUIRT (80)

Per Wikipedia, this was the first soft drink sweetened with aspartame. Seems like good potential for a trivia clue.

     WFTDA (45)

I came across this abbreviation during research at work. It represents a sports organization in the United States. Without research, does anyone know what sport it is associated with?

Default - 313255 Words
New 9L 79S [complete]

I had some free time today so I sprinted to the finish of the New 9L 79S list. I then exported the nine-letter entries with a 29 score to an Excel file and deleted those 25,129 entries from Default, thus the drop in the entry count seen in the post header. I’m going through the Excel list and will re-add the entries worth keeping, and I will then offer the list to colleagues who can do the same. I expect that I will salvage about a thousand entries.

I still have some entries in Default with a 1 score (flagged for deletion) and will dump those before going on to a new entry-length.

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     VASTARRAY (40)

The Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico, is one of my work contacts. I thought VASTARRAY might also be the name of some radio astronomy site, but it seems to be an arbitrary phrase that I inherited from CRUCIVERB. This is another example of “keeping enemies closer” scoring.

     WANTSTOGO (1)

I did some research on this odd entry and discovered that WANTTOGO, clued as {“Interested in coming?”}, was used in a 1999 NYT puzzle. That entry clued in that sense is okay, but the conjugated forms are not. I assume I picked up the entry from CRUCIVERB and manually added the other forms without thinking.

     WINKYDINK (75)

My dad was a fan of this kid show, and described the concept to me when I was young. Having child viewers cover their TV screens with a sheet of acetate so they can draw ladders, bridges, and other necessary items for Winku Dink is a pretty clever concept for the 1950s, and could be considered a pioneer for interactive adventures in the video-game/Internet era. It would be a fun trivia entry in a themeless.

     YOGHOURTS (33)

This variant of “yogurts” is one of the scariest alternate spellings I’ve seen.

     ZHUZHUPET (75)

When I saw this entry, I had a “Oh yeah, those toys were really popular a few years ago, and then I totally forgot about them” moment. Is that a common reaction?

Added Notepad
Default - 338384 Words

Transposal: DEPRECATOR / PROCREATED / TAPERECORD

My OneLook search of * TAPE * entries resulted in about 70 new entries. Not a huge gain, but it breaks up the monotony of going through the Default list.

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     DENTALTAPE (70)

I see this product in the supermarket, but I’m not sure how it is different from dental floss. Anyone know?

     POLICETAPE (75)

I noted two synonyms for this entry — CAUTIONTAPE and WARNINGTAPE. I added both synonyms with a 60 score.

     SEXTAPE (75)

As I mentioned with entry TAPEDECKS in a previous post, TAPE phrases based on audiotape and videotape technology are becoming out-of-date and should be down-scored for that reason. SEX VIDEO is a more accurate term nowadays, but SEXTAPE still seems valid for a recorded (and often-celebrity-related) act of idiscretion even if tape is not involved.

Default - 338313 Words
New 9L 79S VANDALIZE

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Most of the U???????? entries in this list are UN- words that were scored 60 or lower and otherwise unremarkable.

     UROLOGIST (55)

Words etymologically related to “urine” are certainly not favorable entries in a crossword puzzle, but I think this one could be used in a pinch with a clinical, straightforward clue. Maybe Manny Nosowsky, a retired urologist and prolific crossword constructor, would be worth contacting for clue advice.

     VALERIANS (48)

As I go through the list I find lots of names of herbs and flowering plants that I’ve never heard of. In the National Puzzlers’ League, the term “plant flats” (verse puzzles that involve the names of obscure plants) carries a connotation of unsatisfying difficulty. From that, I assume that most puzzle solvers don’t have any special interest in knowing the names of plants, and lower fill scores for such terms seems appropriate.